The Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica in central San José, Costa Rica (adjacent to the Plaza de la Cultura and our hotel) is considered a national treasure and architectural gem: individually all of my Costa Rican co-workers suggested it. A visit makes it abundantly clear why.
The theater hosts performances weekly, often multiple each week, the building itself is a tourist site and there are guided tours daily in either English or Spanish. My wife and I took a late afternoon English tour that allowed us to get inside the building and learn all about it.
Tour Tickets
Outside the main theater building, around the left side, is the ticket office in a standalone building. The security guard at the entrance will point the way if you’re unsure. The ticket office is open from 9am to 4pm. Purchase your tour tickets here, ensuring that you get the appropriate language guide. On the day we visited, only three of the tours were in English.
Entrance Hall
Your first thoughts upon entering is marble: floors, columns, statues, walls are all marble or some other natural stone. The walls and ceilings are also well-decorated, as is the entrance to Cafe Alma on the left. If your schedule doesn’t allow time for the tour, admire the entrance….and then rejigger your schedule. The entrance alone is very impressive and should get you wanted to see more.
Once you have your tickets for the tour, wander around the entrance hall – admiring the statue, watching the video, etc. – until someone starts gathering you for the tour. They’ll check your tickets and then pass you off to the tour guide.
Main Hallway
The tour starts at the door in the corner, after passing through you are in the first floor hallway that patrons walk in to get to their lower-level box seats; the main floor seats are reached by going straight ahead and staircases on the left and right lead to the second level box seats and an ornate salon.
The stunning architecture continues here, looking around you see more marble, more decorations, more attention to detail, more wow.
The Main Floor
A full house for a performance is approximately 1400 people, and you really get a feel of the theater’s intimacy when entering the main floor: overall it’s one of the smaller theaters I’ve ever been in. You are again surrounded by paintings and gold leaf and decorative items that make for an impressive interior.
Our guide provided a lot of background while on the main floor. That it was completed in 1897. That is was originally intended for high society and not for most citizens, even though the entire country supported its construction through taxes. That the decorations are allegories to Costa Rican economy, government, history, etc. That the third-level seats, intended for privilege though average citizens, can only be accessed through exterior staircases to avoid meeting, disrupting, disgusting leaders of government and industry.
The most unique aspect of the theater is that the main floor can be raised level with the stage to provide the largest – at the time – dance floor for the balls originally held for the elite of Costa Rican society. The manual mechanism requires people to push a big lever in circles for 20-30 minutes to raise the floor (think of oxen walking in circles to run a primitive wheat crusher or something similar).
Now the floor is raised only after national elections to allow the elected government to celebrate and is considered a great honor to be among those helping. There’s a video showing how it works, the somewhat dressed-up politicians having fun doing so. [It’s always fun until the actual work of governing becomes your reality!]
Second Floor Salon
We left the main floor and took the stairs to the second level to the Salon, a large, grand, almost ostentatious room with – not surprisingly – plenty of beauty, splendour, and eye candy to enjoy: more marble columns, more gold-leaf moldings, more ceiling murals, more statues. At the time the obvious place for the Costa Rican well-to-do to socialize with one another.
Adorning the ceiling are the shields for Costa Rica and each of its provinces.
The salon is undergoing renovation and restoration, and the experts work while the tour is in progress. The room is being repainted, moldings restored or recreated, new gold leaf reapplied, and anything else to maintain its grandness for the decades to come.
I believe the tour guide said that this was the first major renovation ever, and definitely there’s a lot to do; it’s interesting to see how the work has progressed. No doubt a major and expensive undertaking but needed to maintain what is a national crown jewel.
Box Seats
To get a different view of the theater, we got to see in the second-level box seats. Watch out for the unexpected steps!
The President’s Box is on the second level, center stage, and is only used when the president is in attendance. Otherwise, a distinct reminder of who runs the show!
Final Thoughts
A stunning building with an interesting history that your tour guide sprinkles throughout the tour. The pride in the building and what it means to the country is obvious (even though it was an Italian construction engineer who had to complete the work). The tour guide explained the torturous journey that the material had to make: boat, train, ox cart, anything required in the late 1800s to get to the work site.
The theater was not on our original list of things to do in San Jose, but the tour definitely changed our mind and would have been disappointed if we hadn’t seen it. Without question you should make this part of your visit.
Logistics
Website: https://teatronacional.go.cr/
Address: Avenida 2, C. 5, San José, Catedral, Costa Rica
General Opening Hours: Monday through Sunday, 9am-4pm
Ticket Cost: ¢ 3,500.00/$7 for foreigners, less for Costa Rican nationals
Tour Length: approximately 90 minutes
Children Appropriate: Only for the artistically-inclined, but most children will be bored.
Cafe Alma is a nice place to rest and relax, whether before or after the tour or just because. My wife and I had a meal here because it was so close to our hotel. Needless to say, the architectural beauty extends into the cafe as well.
Image Credits
All images © 2024 Scott C Sosna.
